


Dream and Delirium - Albus

by unkissed



Series: Into the Heart of Darkness: A Collection of A/U Twisted Tales [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Angst, Anxiety, Anxiety Dreams, Death, Dreams, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Illness, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-02
Updated: 2015-01-02
Packaged: 2018-03-05 00:50:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3098831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unkissed/pseuds/unkissed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When dreams fade into morning, the boy’s face is featureless, other than his eyes.  He is an insipid, pale smudge on my subconscious.  </p><p>Part III in a collection of dark A/U twisted tales, in which Albus and Scorpius are crazy in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dream and Delirium - Albus

**Author's Note:**

> This is the third twisted tale in the series. Each story stands alone and is not connected to the others in the collection.
> 
> Neil Gaiman's Sandman is vaguely mentioned by his other monikers. Gaiman's Delirium isn't mentioned anywhere but in the title, but she definitely influenced the events in the story. All definitions were plucked from wikipedia and the Mayo Clinic website. I know nothing of psychology - this story is pure fiction.
> 
> Thank you to ColorfulStabwound for inspiration, friendship, and support.
> 
> For Scorpius.

I see him behind my closed eyelids – the boy, with luminous blond hair that rises and falls in soft waves, with skin like the petal of a white rose, and eyes the color of melting ice.  His features are so faint, I wonder if he is a ghost. He is always out of reach when I try to touch him.  He is perpetually unattainable.  Many nights I try, grasping at air frantically as my fingertips come agonizingly close to him. Every night I fail.

 

When dreams fade into morning, the boy’s face is featureless, other than his eyes.  He is an insipid, pale smudge on my subconscious. 

 

 

~@~

 

 **_Anxiety dreams_ ** _are characterized by the feelings of unease, distress, or apprehension in the dreamer upon waking. Anxiety dreams occur in rapid eye movement sleep, and usual themes involve incomplete tasks, embarrassment, falling, or pursuit. Anxiety dreams may be caused by childhood trauma, or an adulthood conflict._

 

I’d been having this recurrent dream for at least seven years, for as long as I’d been aware of the nocturnal wanderings of the mind.  It hadn’t been every night, and it had usually been just one small facet within the nondescript matrix of my other dreams. 

 

Dad had called it an anxiety dream. I usually have the dream if I’m stressed about something.  For somebody so young, I had been stressed out quite a bit, as was my anxious nature. The smallest things would bore into me and make holes in my psyche the size of neuroses:  Such as the time when I was five, when Jamie hid my plush rabbit, the one I carried with me always since the age of ten months, the one I couldn’t sleep without.  Or after my first time on a broom, when Gramps pat me on the shoulder and consoled me, unsolicited, about the sad fact that I had clearly not inherited any of my parents’ innate flying skills.  And there were countless other incidents and passing comments that made me feel lost and inferior, further fueling my anxiety.

 

Some events shifted my anxiety to levels that required therapy – not that mum and dad had needed more of an excuse to send me to talk to somebody every week.  There was the incident when I was seven in which I’d gone to town with mum and wandered off in pursuit of a silver cat, only to find a handsy drunkard in an alley. Or the incident when a pushy journalist found me playing in front of the house and asked me salacious questions concerning my sister – questions that I was too uncorrupted to understand at the time.

 

Following those events, the dreams had been at their worst. On those particularly bad nights, I would be so hysterical in my frenzied attempts to reach the boy that I’d suddenly wake up panting and sweating, having fought this invisible barrier in my sleep, trying fruitlessly to get to the boy.

 

I did not know who this boy was, or why I was trying so hard to make a physical connection with him.  I’d wondered what I’d even do if I _could_ touch him.  Would I shake his hand?  Hug him? Hit him?  I couldn’t tell how I felt about the boy in the dream. All I knew was that I could not touch him.  And that frustration kept me up many nights.

 

Once I was fully aware of the dream, around the age of ten, I would go to bed determined to accomplish three things – I would dream of the boy, and in the dream, I would reach him and remember his face.  It never worked.  It seemed like my own subconscious was becoming autonomous and was purposely thwarting my efforts.

 

Perhaps suppressed memories of a previous life were manifesting in my dreams, tormenting me for some past sin.  Or maybe it was Morpheus himself, warning me of the future. But what was the message? Was I _supposed_ to succeed in connecting with the boy?  Or would reaching the boy initiate a series of unfortunate events?

 

 

~@~

 

I was eleven the last time I had the dream in its exact form. Thereafter, everything changed.

 

It was the night before I would begin school at Hogwarts.  It was a wonder that I managed to fall asleep at all, so wracked with anxiety was I. I would leave the sheltered bubble of my family and enter a world where nobody would shield me from scrutiny and judgment, where I could not possibly live up to the inflated expectations that my surname carried. It didn’t help that my brother had been riling me up all night, making me worry about the sorting, telling me how much all the houses sucked that were not Gryffindor.

 

I awoke with the dawn in a tangle of sweaty bed sheets, half hanging off the bed, still panting and reaching down to the floor with straining fingers.  I’d seen the boy so clearly in the dream that I could probably sketch him, had I any talent for drawing. If only I could remember him upon waking.

 

~@~

 

When it came time for me to don the sorting hat, I had fully intended to request to be placed in Gryffindor.  I was prepared to beg and plead my case.  But as soon as the oversized hat fell well past my forehead and forced my eyes to close, I saw the faceless boy – those ice blue eyes set within a featureless head.  And before I could clear the lingering mental image, the sorting hat sealed my fate.

 

_Slytherin!_

Had the crowd not erupted into a din of scandalized murmuring, surely everyone would have heard my throaty gasp of surprise and dread.  I walked to the Slytherin table in a shocked daze, unable to look up from the floor. I knew that if I made any kind of eye contact with the people that were staring at me like a curious anomaly, I’d likely have a panic attack. 

 

My therapist coached me for this exact scenario, and I held on to her voice echoing in my head.

 

_Breathe, Albus. Focus on one tiny speck, then open it up to a small circle, and slowly widen the circle until you can take it all in without losing it.  Close the circle a fraction if you feel the panic beginning to surface, and stay there until you can breathe again._

My circle of focus stayed very small for much of the night, as it had all day.  I didn’t begin to open it until I was finally in my dormitory room, where I only had to contend with five sets of eyes sizing me up rather than hundreds.

 

I rushed to my trunk as soon as I was reunited with it to retrieve my plush bunny.  I clandestinely shoved the small rabbit into the wide sleeves of my cloak and took comfort in its well-worn softness.  I could begin to breath again with something connecting me to home. I took a deep cleansing breath and turned around slowly, ready to survey my new room and its inhabitants.

 

What I found behind me was so physically, emotionally, and mentally jarring that I fell over my trunk when I backed away. I sat on top of the closed lid with fingers splayed upon it like buttresses to keep myself upright. I gaped at the vision, unsure if it was my imagination doing horrible things to me during a panic attack, a ghost, or a real person.

 

Standing in front of me was a boy. Not just any boy. _The_ boy. With hair, the precise hue of unfiltered sunlight, with eyes, the exact blue color of melting ice. I sat there, gaping at him with fear and disbelief, unable to speak, wondering if I’d gone completely crazy.

 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” said the boy with a slight smile – the sort of smile that bore nothing of malice, but only good will.  “I just thought I should introduce myself, since we’re going to be living together and stuff.”

 

I couldn’t respond.  I sat frozen, worrying that I’d look stupid speaking to somebody my neurotic mind had conjured up.  In the back of my head, I screamed.  _Wake up!  Wake up and remember his face!_   An immeasurable amount of time had passed in awkward silence, during which I committed to memory every curve and shape that made up this boy’s face.  All the regal angles and soft lines.  And I weighed all these features after only a swift glance, for I had seen them many times before.  By my quick measure, he was beautiful.  The most hauntingly beautiful boy I’d ever seen.

 

“I’m Scorpius.  Scorpius Malfoy,” he said cheerily, as he reached out an arm and offered his hand in a polite gesture.

 

I tentatively extended my hand. “I’m, erm,” I was so dumbstruck that I couldn’t even answer properly.

 

“I know who you are.  You’re Albus Potter,” he said, still smiling, in such an unexpectedly welcoming way.

 

I swallowed hard, hesitating to shake his hand, hovering my fingers over his, not realizing I was staring at them until he spoke again.  “It’s totally okay, Albus. I promise I won’t bite,” he assured me.

 

But before I could close my hand around his pallid, slender fingers, another voice startled me, causing me to yank my hand away.

 

“Don’t believe it, Potter.  Malfoy won’t bite you hard, but the nasty little bugger still bites.”

 

I turned towards the voice to find a smug looking boy with neat, brown hair, snickering from his position perched atop his bed.

 

The pale boy, _Scorpius_ , giggled.  The sound of it was like melodic bells in my head and it made my heart flutter inside my chest for a few beats.  His eyes shone when he smiled.  He shook his head amusedly at the smug boy and said, “Shut up, Dustan.  I absolutely do not bite.  _You_ suck.”

 

Playful bickering ensued between the two boys and I was quickly forgotten, having slipped through the closed curtains of my bed. I spent the rest of the night wondering when I was going to wake up from this dream – when I was going to forget the untouchable boy.  And I found myself, more than in any of my dreams, straining to remember him, burning the complete picture of his face into my memory, stealing glances from a slit between the curtains for reference.

 

Ironically, I was so afraid that I would wake up and forget him, that I kept myself up nearly all night.  Because it wasn’t a dream.  The boy was entirely real.  When I woke up the next morning, he was there, his face shining like the sun to greet me.

 

“Morning, Albus.  Excited? I am,” said Scorpius, standing at the side of my bed, holding open the curtains and chattering so fast I couldn’t get a word in had I wanted to.  “Can’t wait for Potions.  I bet you’re good at it. Your middle name is Severus, isn’t it? I read it in the Prophet. I was wondering if you were named after the great Potions master, Severus Snape.  I have six of his chocolate frog cards – they’re super rare. How cool is that, though, to be named after him?  I’m not named after anyone. I doubt there’s anyone in the world named Scorpius Hyperion.”

 

I’m not the sort of person who is amenable in the morning, even after a good night’s sleep, so I was not in the best mindset to process anything that Scorpius was blathering on about.

 

“Anyway, we’d better get a move on if we’re going to make it to breakfast,” he said, reaching a hand out to me, presumably to help me up and out of bed.

 

I stared between Scorpius and the offered hand with bleary eyes.  I was caught between being afraid to touch him and being too anxious to do so. I’d spent years trying to touch him in my dreams.  So when I closed my fingers around his, I held my breath, expecting the worst.

 

What I hadn’t expected was to feel warmth. You’d think that somebody with such stark, pale features would be cold to the touch.  I could feel the bones in his skinny fingers closing around my wrist as Scorpius pulled me up.  He somehow felt both delicate and strong at the same time, like he’d either snap or he’d break me if one of us squeezed too tightly.  He drew me upright more with the magnetism of his crystalline gaze than with muscle, of which he had little to none.  His eyes were familiar and comforting, and I knew right then and there that my circle of focus would always be centered on Scorpius.

 

~@~

 

 **_Panic disorder_ ** _is an anxiety disorder characterized by recurring panic attacks and series of intense episodes of extreme anxiety during panic attacks. It may also include significant behavioral changes lasting at least a month and of ongoing worry about the implications or concern about having other attacks. The latter are called anticipatory attacks. Panic disorder is not the same as agoraphobia (fear of public places), although many afflicted with panic disorder also suffer from agoraphobia._

 

 

 

 

It was flying class when I had my first panic attack at school.  I was surprised that I lasted a whole four days without one.  It was probably Scorpius who staved them off, and the fact that I was too focused on him to let any of the usual triggers bother me.  But being on a broom was too substantial of a trigger to ignore. It was only a matter of time before I broke under the pressure to perform as brilliantly as my parents and my brother before me.

 

I was sweating and clutching my broom with a white-knuckle grasp as my feet remained firmly on the ground.  All the other kids were hovering a few feet above the ground, if a bit wobbly.  But I stood frozen, panting, screwing my eyes shut, and shaking my head.

 

“I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t,” I muttered.

 

I felt inhibited by all those expectant eyes upon me and was unable to kick off – not that I’d ever had trouble with it before. Even though the words of my fellow classmates were encouraging, I heard them differently.  When they said, _you can do it Albus_ , all I heard was _why can’t you do it?_   And when they said, _don’t be afraid,_ all I heard was _what are you afraid of?_ And all those questions in my head were asked impatiently, in place of the real question that everyone had – _why can’t you be like your dad?_

I dropped the broom and started to walk away. I vaguely heard our flying instructor reprimanding me while the other kids whispered.  _What’s wrong with him? Is he okay?  He looks like he’s about to be sick.  What’s his problem?_

I kept on walking, trying to stop myself from hyperventilating, but my breathing grew more rapid and shallow with each step as I felt the panic starting to close in on me.  My circle of focus was shrunken down to a pinpoint of light and the claustrophobia of it all was making me feel dizzy.

 

I was somewhere far off the practice field on the grounds of the school, sitting in the grass and hugging my knees tight to my chest, when I felt a hand on my shoulder.  I knew those lithe fingers immediately, as if I’d felt their touch many times before.

 

“Hey.”  Scorpius’ voice was soft and gentle, as was his hand. 

 

I kept staring blankly in front of me, silent and shaking, unable to respond.

 

“I get them too,” he said.

 

“Huh?” I managed to ask weakly.

 

“Panic attacks.  Well, not as often as I used to,” he admitted, “But my family’s healer prescribed this special tincture for me that I take every night, and I get them much less.”

 

I turned to look at him, widening my circle of focus just for him.  I already felt my breathing beginning to return to normal.  “I get them bad,” I whispered raggedly, “Sometimes I feel it coming and I freak out just from the anticipation.  Like now.” I wasn’t nearly as anxious as I had been seconds ago, and I worried that I would look like I’m lying.

 

But Scorpius conceded, “Yeah, I was the same way. _Anticipatory attacks_ , my healer calls them.  I looked over at you in flying lessons and I knew _exactly_ what was happening to you.”

 

I took a cleansing breath as I let go of my knees and stretched out my legs in front of me.  I pinched the bridge of my nose and hissed, “Gods, so embarrassing.”

 

“Don’t be embarrassed.  Nobody’s ever really going to understand people like us. So I just say _screw them_ , and I take this.”   Scorpius pulled out a little glass vial from the inside pocket of his robes and held it before me, offering it up like candy.

 

I watched the violently purple liquid swirl ominously inside the vial.  “Your special tincture?”

 

“Mm-hm!” he replied brightly with a nod. “It’s got valerian flower, passionflower, lemon balm, and a whole bunch of other stuff in it. You can have this dose. Take it now, and it’ll keep you from having a panic attack later.”

 

“But…,” I was about to politely decline, unwilling to deprive Scorpius of his medication, when he interrupted me.

 

“I’ve got loads more in my trunk. My mum’s sending me more next month. No worries.  Just take it.”  He grinned brightly.

 

I hesitantly took the vial and narrowed my eyes at it, scrutinizing its contents as if I could really assess its safety by just looking at it.  “Are you sure it’s alright for me to take?  Aren’t prescription potions brewed particularly for the person they’re prescribed to?”

 

“It might as well have been prescribed for you. I mean, we both have panic disorder, we’re the same age, same body type.  It’s totally fine.”  Scorpius waved a hand, dismissing all of my apprehensions.

 

I uncorked the vial and placed it to my lips. “Any side effects?” I drank it down before waiting for his answer, perhaps because I knew that any side effects would be well worth the cure.

 

“Might make you a bit sleepy,” Scorpius answered, “Or make you sleepless.  But the big one, and I hardly consider it a negative one, is that it causes _disinhibition_.”

 

The potion tasted like a mixture of lavender soap and sweet tea – in other words, horrible, with a nice aftertaste. I coughed after I swallowed, but in reaction to the big scary word that Scorpius had used, not in response to the taste.

 

“My healer says that _disinhibition_ is like living without a filter – you say and do stuff like you don’t bloody care.  My father says it means I run my mouth and I get into trouble.  But I think _disinhibition_ is brilliant. I feel so much freer and happier.  And maybe I do talk a lot, and say stuff I shouldn’t, and do stuff that’s not proper – at least I’m not flipping my shit every time I’m faced with a trigger.”

 

I felt much calmer already, but I wasn’t sure if it was a placebo effect, or perhaps just Scorpius making me feel better. I never imagined that there was another boy like me, who was plagued with the same awful sickness. I couldn’t even be angry with my parents for keeping potions out of my treatment, because I was too distracted by this novel sensation of relief washing over me.  I was not alone.  There was somebody in this world who was just like me, and I’d been lucky enough to find him.

 

Perhaps it hadn’t been luck at all, but the hand of Dream himself, guiding me toward my salvation.

 

 

Scorpius told his parents that school was giving him more anxiety, and his healer advised them to double his medication dose. It was bullshit, though – Scorpius wasn’t anxious at all.  He was sharing his potion with me.  It was not an immediate cure, but I felt its cumulative effects over time. After a week, I felt my circle of focus begin to open wider and wider until, four weeks later, the whole world opened before me.

 

And it was fucking beautiful.

 

 

~@~

 

 

I never realized how very sick I’d been until Scorpius and his anxiolytic potion resolved my illness.  While I had suffered from anxiety disorder, I had not been living, but existing in a bubble, trapped by fear and pressure to be like my father. Once the bubble burst and I’d been freed, I truly began to live, disregarding all of the expectations that my name carried. I discovered that, beneath the debilitating anxiety, I actually had a personality and a whole spectrum of emotions other than unease.

 

With Scorpius, I had experienced the greatest joys and the highest highs of my young life.  We did everything together.  We walked to classes together, ate our meals together, did our homework together, spent our free time together.  Some nights, we even slept together in the same bed, for the potion did nothing to ease our anxiety dreams, and it was much less awful to wake up from those dreams next to somebody who understood, rather than waking up cold and alone.

 

He was my best mate and my partner in crime. I don’t know if it had been the _disinhibition_ , or just my new lease on life, that had me in detention at least once a month, usually with Scorpius serving by my side equally unrepentant for our petty transgressions.

 

 

It is in detention, one evening during the second half of the year, when I’m met with the most beautiful revelation of all. I feel free enough and unguarded enough to fall in love.  I had probably been in love with Scorpius since I saw him in my dreams – the dreams that I was still having in various manifestations – the dreams that I couldn’t tell Scorpius about. 

 

It was the only thing I kept from him, for he and I shared almost every detail of our illness otherwise.  He knew all my triggers, and I knew all of his (at least, I thought so). And though the triggers didn’t cause panic attacks in our waking lives, they wreaked havoc on our dreams. So we looked out for one another and tried to keep those triggers at bay. 

 

 

There’s a wizard wireless tuned to a music station in the Divination classroom where we are serving detention. Professor Patil has left us here to tend to something in her office downstairs, and doesn’t bother to turn off the music.  Scorpius and I are cleaning the crystal balls when a particular song comes on that makes his entire body go visibly rigid.

 

_Oh, my love, my darling_

_I hungered for your touch_

_A long lonely time_

“What is it?  What’s wrong?” I ask, concerned.

 

“That song,” he says stiffly, “It’s a _bad_ song.”

 

I’m quite a music buff, so I recognize it right away. It is Celestina Warbeck’s rendition of a very old muggle song _._ I actually like the song and know it well because it’s one of my gran’s favorites.

 

“It’s not _that_ bad,” I say, “It’s quite lovely, I think.”

 

“No.  It’s _very bad_ ,” he insists, “It’s a bad, bad song.”

 

Scorpius is acting unlike himself, and I recognize the signs of an anticipatory attack.  The trigger must be a pretty strong one to cause such a relapse while he’s been on his medication.

 

“Shit.  The song is a trigger.  Isn’t it?” I say, rushing to the wireless, intending to shut it off.

 

“No,” he says curtly, “I mean, yeah, it’s a trigger, but don’t shut it off.  I want to work through it.  My healer said that I need to eliminate my triggers.”

 

My hand hovers over the knob of the wireless, just in case I need to act quickly.  “Shall I at least turn it down a little?”

 

He shakes his head vehemently, pursing his lips. “No.  Turn it up.  Make it loud.”

 

I hesitate, but do it anyway. I can see that his chest is heaving and there’s not enough color in his cheeks for my liking. “My therapist says that, if the trigger can’t be avoided, if it’s something otherwise harmless, to change your mind’s association with the trigger.  Make it about something else,” I suggest.

 

“Good idea,” he says brusquely, visibly powering through some inner turmoil.  “Dance with me.”

 

“What?” I scoff.

 

“Al,” he says insistently, giving me a pointed look.

 

“But I’m a boy and you’re a boy and boys don’t dance together to songs like _this_ ,” I say, even though I don’t have any real reservations about slow dancing with boys, or doing anything with them for that matter.  Still I have just enough inhibition left to feel a little shy about dancing with my best mate, who I’m undeniably attracted to.

 

“Albus Severus Potter,” he annunciates sternly with surprisingly the same tone as my mother, “Get your arse over here and fucking dance with me, or witness me lose my shit.  And, believe me, you do not want to be within range when my shit is lost.”

 

I rush over, unable to disobey such an order and stand face to face with Scorpius, this angel of a boy, who appears hurting in ways that I’ve never seen him before.  The beseeching look in his ice blue eyes plead for my help, and I readily take up his hand in mine.  If I could absorb all of his pain, even to my own detriment, I would do it.

 

My other hand slips to the small of his back and I press his body closer to mine.  He rests his free hand on my shoulder.  And we start to sway slowly to the gentle rhythm of the song.  I’m as caught in his gaze as he is in mine. My eyes are an anchor for him, keeping him from slipping deep into the dark turmoil of his psyche.

 

_Lonely rivers sigh_

_Wait for me, wait for me_

_I’ll be coming home_

_Wait for me, my love_

_Oh, my love_

I swallow hard, knowing that this song and this dance have taken on meaning for me now.  I feel my heart swell with need and longing, and I know that Scorpius can hardly be expected to feel the same – not during the brink of a panic attack - not now, not ever.  And the love that makes my heart beat faster also makes it ache like nothing I’ve ever felt before.

 

“Change the meaning of the song,” I say, guiding him through the process of eliminating a trigger without knowing what the hell I’m doing.  “It isn’t about that bad thing you associate it with.  It’s about what’s happening right now.”

 

Scorpius nods, taking a slow, cleansing breath. “It’s about this. It’s about you. It’s about dancing with my best mate. Who happens to be a boy. And a good dancer.”

 

We both giggle, though I can tell that there’s just a slight quiver of anxiety creeping into Scorpius’ laugh.

 

“So, is dancing with a boy weird enough to distract you?  Can you associate this song with that weird time you danced with a boy?” I ask, perhaps a bit selfishly motivated.  “Eliminate it as a trigger?”

 

“It’s not weird at all.  I like dancing with you,” he admits.

 

My heart flutters and flips within my chest and my smile is stupidly wide.  He hazards a coy smile and it makes him look vulnerable in ways that make me realize how very much I’m in love with him.  I blush and try to hide the color in my cheeks by resting my head on his shoulder and giggling nervously.  He surprises me by angling his head towards mine.   We dance close until the song ends.

 

And perhaps a little bit beyond that.

 

 

The song ceases to be a trigger for Scorpius, and I won’t find out why it had been a trigger for a few years after. But regardless of what it meant to Scorpius before, the song is now _our_ song.

 

It is the song I play for him on my acoustic guitar by the lake one balmy day during our third year, when I find the courage, or am just uninhibited enough, to tell Scorpius that I love him. He tells me that he loves me too, but we’d already known for quite some time before it had ever been said. It is the song we associate with our first kiss.

 

It is the song I sing to him through the fire when we miss each other during school breaks. 

 

It is the song we play on a phonograph in a tent I construct for him by the lake for his fifteenth birthday, when we dance, just the way we did in the Divination classroom when we were twelve.

 

It is the song that provides the perfect soundtrack in that same tent a few months later, for the moment I give up everything to Scorpius, and Scorpius gives everything in return – when the song takes on more meaning and more depth.

 

It is the song that will some day come to haunt me.

 

 

~@~

 

 **_Disinhibition_ ** _is a lack of restraint manifested in disregard for social conventions, impulsivity, and poor risk assessment. Disinhibition affects motor, instinctual, emotional, cognitive, and perceptual aspects with signs and symptoms similar to the diagnostic criteria for mania. Hypersexuality, hyperphagia, and aggressive outbursts are indicative of disinhibited instinctual drives._

 

 

 

 

Disinhibition makes us deviant little creatures, especially on long summer days when all of Malfoy Manor is our playground, and the eyes of parental figures are otherwise preoccupied elsewhere on the expansive property. We gobble up too many sweets and sprint shirtless, shouting like uncivilized heathens, high on sugar and love, through the lush gardens and over manicured lawns, playing _run catch kiss_.  Scorpius’ father and grandmother are appalled at our behavior, but cannot corral us in order to reprimand us.  We come down from the rush of adrenaline and tumble to the ground beneath a lakeside willow tree in a tangle of sweaty, sunburnt limbs.

 

Scorpius’ kisses scorch my skin with a heat more penetrating than the sun’s rays, and we find ourselves in our preferred summer state - naked in the grass, too lost in one another to care about getting caught. Anyway, we are far enough from the house and too obscured by the curtain of willow leaves to be concerned.

 

He lays me on my back, and the sun filtering through the swaying trees behind him looks like sparks of electricity. His touch makes me feel like I’m filled with that electric light, and I can hardly believe there had been a time when I was afraid to even shake his hand.  I want his touch all around me, all over me, through me and within me, pulsing with pleasure, surging without inhibitions.

 

He rocks above me slowly, moving as languidly as the heat of midday makes us feel, sliding over my sweat-slicked body with endearingly inexpert motions.  Every moan he elicits is a prize and a lesson learned, for we are still navigating through sex without a map, groping our way around uncharted territories. Even when trial and error leads to more error than success, the thrill of discovery eradicates any notion of awkwardness.  For Scorpius, perfecting how to make love to me is as natural as learning how to swim – sometimes we flail and struggle to catch our breath, but once we find the right rhythm, we are sea creatures, swirling in an underwater dance.

 

My body moves sinuously like the waves of the ocean beneath Scorpius and I lose myself to the abyss as I sink deeper and deeper into ecstasy.  When I come, spurting hotly through his nimble fingers, I feel like I’m dying. White sparks flash behind my closed eyelids.  When Scorpius comes inside me, I die again, twenty times over with each warm pulse.

 

He collapses beside me and I fold myself around him as our heaving breaths become tranquil and slow and synchronized. And it is now, not in the height of orgasm, when I feel most in love with Scorpius, in the afterglow. I speak without a filter, not that I ever have one nowadays, unafraid to tell him exactly how I feel.

 

“I want to be with you forever, Scor,” I mumble against his slowly rising and falling chest, “I don’t want to be with anybody else. I know that this was meant to be.”

 

I can sense his smile in his voice. “I’m not going anywhere, Albie. I’m yours.  Forever.”

 

“We should get married.”  This is one of the times that I blurt out things recklessly without thinking them through.  Chalk it up to the medication.

 

Scorpius answers definitively and it hurts like a knife.  “No. I’m never getting married. I don’t believe in marriage.” I hear the slight tinge of anger in his voice and I do my best to keep it from surfacing completely.

 

“It was just a thought.”  Perhaps I sound more dejected than I intended.

 

Scorpius sighs and rubs my shoulder comfortingly. “Nothing against you, Al. I love you so much. It’s just that I’ve seen what marriage does to people.  I don’t want us to end up like my mum and dad.”

 

“I understand,” I say, even though I want to argue that we are not his parents and thus would have an entirely different experience if we were ever married.

 

“You see that lake?” Scorpius asks, sitting up. “Inside that lake is my family’s entire collection of heirloom china.  It had belonged to the Malfoys for generations.  And now it’s rubbish.  Broken at the bottom of the lake.  Do you know who put it there?”

 

Obviously I don’t, so I shake my head meekly, knowing that Scorpius is about to tell me, perhaps very animatedly. But he speaks very clinically, eerily devoid of any emotion.

 

“My mother.  When my father served her with divorce papers, she was so angry and heartbroken that she made all the china fly out of the house and dumped it in the lake. The entire time, she was screaming and crying hysterically.  There was nothing I could do.  I was three. She was so messed up after the divorce, she tried to kill herself.  I found her in the bath with her wrists slit, barely conscious. I was four.  Do you know what song was playing on the wizarding wireless when I slipped in a pool of my mother’s blood on the bathroom floor?”

 

I shake my head again, even though I have a pretty good guess.

 

“ _Unchained Melody_. As sung by Celestina Warbeck,” he declares before slowly crumbling into a sobbing mess.

 

I enshroud him in my arms and let him cry. I try to stay strong, but I find myself weeping as well.  I feel terrible that Scorpius had to experience that horror, and angry that it had caused enough pain in his life to inflict indelible scars on his mind.

 

“It’s _our_ song, Scor.  It’s ours now.” I try to comfort him. I kiss him and hold him tight and let him cry against my chest until the erratic sobs subside.

 

When he pulls away from me after what feels like an hour, his face is pink and his eyes are puffy and blood-shot. But he manages to smile. “It’s our song.”

 

“Our song,” I repeat with a firm kiss upon his lips.

 

“Hey, I have an idea,” he says after a long, comfortable silence.  From the maniacal brightness of his reddened eyes, I know we are headed for trouble. “Let’s get that china out of the lake.”

 

~@~

 

 **_Nightmares_ ** _are distinct from anxiety dreams by the profoundly disturbing content that distinguishes the nightmare from the anxiety dream._

 

  

 

I have this nightmare.  It is a mutation of the recurrent anxiety dream. Ever since I met Scorpius, he had starred in this dream, and this nightmare is no exception.  Other than the fact that Scorpius is in it, and I can’t reach him, the nightmare differs drastically from the anxiety dream. The nightmare is a hundred times more terrifying.

 

I’m swimming in dark water.  Tall weeds float around me like green flags waving in slow motion. I’m searching for Scorpius frantically, darting back and forth with my head under water between short gasps for air at the surface.  Every second I can’t find him, my fear spirals toward panic.  And after searching wildly, desperately, for several minutes, I finally find him.

 

He is unconscious under water. His stark white limbs float lifelessly amidst a tangle of weeds in the murky depths.  His eyes are closed as if in dream and his lips are tinged blue. That is when the panic takes hold. I forget how to breathe. I forget how to swim. I am desperate to reach Scorpius and find that my arms are useless to propel me across the short distance. I flail beneath the surface and feel crushing pressure upon my lungs.  My consciousness wanes as oxygen deprivation and a full-scale panic attack incapacitates me. I am a mere arm’s-length away from Scorpius when I black out.

 

 

When I wake up, I’m not in my bed. I am in a hospital. I scream like a crazy person, unsure if the nightmare had been real or the most torturous of anxiety dreams. I won’t know for days because sedatives have me in and out of restless sleep and in a drugged-up haze. When the healers and the therapists finally realize that nightmare-plagued sleep is wreaking havoc on my sanity, they ease up on the sedatives.  I spend the next two days decidedly not sleeping, unwilling to revisit the nightmare.

 

None of the hospital staff will tell me how I got here. My parents had only visited when I was foggy-headed or half-asleep and wouldn’t give me any information. I wonder if I’ve become paranoid or if everyone really is hiding something from me.

 

It is the second day of being clear-headed and calm enough to ask questions without flipping my shit, when the DMLE officers arrive.

 

“Where’s Scorpius?” is the first thing that comes out of my mouth the moment they come into the room.  I try to keep the panic out of my voice, hoping that I’ll get an answer if I don’t sound crazy.

 

But they don’t answer.  There are two of them - A very tall man and a very short woman, both with an infuriatingly calm demeanor.  They have lots of questions and don’t waste a breath between them. I’d feel like I was being interrogated, were it not for the even tone of their voices.  But I get the sinking feeling with each question that I _am_ being interrogated, which does not bode well for the fate of my dear Scorpius.

 

“Were you at Malfoy Manor on Thursday?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Why were you there?”

 

“To visit Scorpius.”

 

“Would you say you and Scorpius are close friends?”

 

“Absolutely.  He’s my boyfriend.” 

 

They don’t bat an eyelash at this declaration and move on to the next question as quickly as they had been firing through the previous.

 

“What was the last thing you remembered doing at Malfoy Manor?”

 

“I remember swimming in the lake.”

 

“Was Scorpius swimming with you?”

 

“Yes”

 

“Who entered the water first? You or Scorpius?”

 

“He jumped in first.  I was a bit nervous about getting in the water, but I got in eventually.”

 

“Whose idea had it been to swim in the lake?”

 

“Scorpius’.  He wanted to go diving for china.”

 

The officers pause their barrage of questions to jot down notes in their little books and exchange heavy looks. I worry that I sound crazy.

 

“I can explain.”

 

“No need.  Can you tell us who got out of the water first?”

 

I have to think very hard about this. All I remember is the dream. And I’m reticent to start spouting off details from my nightmares for people who already think I’m insane.

 

“I don’t remember,” I say almost dismissively, and launch some questions of my own.  “Is Scorpius okay?  Is he here in the hospital? Did he get hurt?”

 

“Why would you think Scorpius is anything but okay? What makes you ask if he got hurt?” One of the officers asks in a way that makes me feel like they’re leading me in to something.

 

“I-I-I don’t know,” I stutter. I want to mention the dream, but I’m afraid they’ll tell the staff and the healers will put me on more medication. “I always worry about Scorpius. I love him.”

 

“Think back to Malfoy Manor.  Take as much time as you need to remember,” the officer dives back into questioning, “Who came out of the water first?”

 

I rack my brain.  I close my eyes.  I try to see around the fog of nightmares and dreams and drug-addled visions. And then I see it. A memory.  I am crawling onto the dock, violently coughing up lake water. I’d been unconscious in the lake for maybe a few seconds and it was a wonder I didn’t drown. 

 

“ _I_ did,” I say, lifting my head up and answering with finality, “I came out first.”

 

“How long after did Scorpius come out?”

 

And that is when reality hits me like the whomping willow.  I cover my mouth to stifle an anguished cry.  Scorpius never came out.  “Oh my gods,” I whimper, then start to sob and hyperventilate.  “Scorpius.  Is he okay? Did you find him?”

 

“We found him,” one of the officers replies plainly, reticently.

 

I heave a slight sigh of relief, but I’m far from reassured.

 

The other officer asks, “Albus, do you know how to use the _folia strangulavit_ curse?”

 

“The what?  I’ve never heard of that.  Do you think I would use a curse on Scorpius?  I’d never hurt him.  Is he okay?” I’m more hysterical than I should be, but the fact is, I’m on the verge of a panic attack. “All I want to know is if Scorpius is alright.  I want to see him. Please let me see him,” I plead tearfully.

 

“You can’t see him,” says one of the officers.

 

The other officer chimes in before I can protest. “You can’t see him because we found him ten hours after you both jumped into the water.  With weeds charmed to strangle him underwater. Now tell us, Albus – Why did you do it?”

 

I don’t get to explain that I didn’t do it. I don’t have the opportunity to insist that I have no fucking idea how it happened.  Because I lose it completely.  The love of my life has been torn from me.  And all I want to do is launch myself at the glass door and scream at the cruel gods who took Scorpius away from me.  Before the hospital staff has me sedated and under control, I’m bloodied and bruised at my own hands, rolling around in broken glass, screaming my head off.

 

But the bodily harm I have inflicted upon myself is nothing compared to the wreckage inside me.

 

 

~@~

 

 **_Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)_ ** _is a mental health condition that is triggered by a terrifying event — either experiencing it or witnessing it. Symptoms may include flashbacks, nightmares and severe anxiety, as well as uncontrollable thoughts about the event._

 

 

 

 

I knew I’d been in Saint Mungo’s hospital for days. But what I hadn’t known was that I was never there to be treated for water aspiration or hypothermia. I had been admitted to a high-security section of the hospital for the criminally insane. Yes, me, sixteen-year-old little Albie, in the same ward as former Death Eaters and murderers and serial rapists. Apparently, being the son of Harry Potter doesn’t hold any weight.  In fact, my surname works against me because nobody wants to be accused of going too easy on the Potter kid.  But this is a bit much.

 

Granted, I did go a little mental after the incident in the lake.  Running up to Malfoy Manor, naked and screaming hysterically, then blacking out again from a major panic attack, landed me in the mental ward.  The mysterious circumstances surrounding Scorpius’ death landed me in a locked room next door to psychopaths.

 

There is no waking from this nightmare. When I sleep, I dream of Scorpius in the lake.  When I wake up, I feel the debilitating pain of life without Scorpius, and I face the horror of being accused of killing him.  It is an endless cycle of terror and despair.

 

I hadn’t had access to any of Scorpius’ anxiolytic potion for days, and I’d begun to feel some pretty heavy withdrawal symptoms, which only exacerbated my post-traumatic anxiety.  It took a while for the healers to get me on the right medications, but eventually I evened out enough to stand trial.

 

 

In the middle of a windowless circular room, surrounded by the judging eyes of the Wizengamut, I sit with enchanted chains shackling my wrists and ankles as if I am the most dangerous criminal. The flashbulbs of journalists’ cameras explode like fireworks and the enraged outbursts of my family go off like bombs of anguish.  The chaos that roils around me could potentially send me into a suffocating panic attack that would rival the one I had experienced in the lake.  But so many potions and tinctures flood my veins and have rendered me a blank, emotionless, empty vessel. 

 

“Look up boy!  Have you no remorse or no shame?” says one of the members of the Wizengamut.

 

I gaze up with an expressionless face and say, “No. I have nothing to be sorry for or ashamed of.”

 

The courtroom erupts into shocked gasps and judgmental murmurs. Everybody loves a sensational scandal. The audience is all too ready to believe that the son of the savior of the wizarding world had premeditated the murder of his teenage gay lover who happened to be a Malfoy.  It doesn’t matter that I am completely innocent. Innocence Lost sells more issues of the Daily Prophet than an unheeded plea of Not Guilty. 

 

The Wizengamut is thus far not convinced that I had nothing to do with Scorpius death.  They are asking me very personal questions – questions that make my parents shout in protest.

 

“Were you having intimate relations with Scorpius Malfoy?” is the inquiry of one very old member of the Wizengamut.

 

I tilt my head with confusion. “Meaning?”

 

Another wizard, not as old, clarifies with brisk impatience, “Sex.  Did you have a sexual relationship with Scorpius Malfoy?”

 

“He’s just a boy!” my mother objects.

 

“Mrs. Potter,” reprimands the head wizard of the Wizengamut, “another outburst from you, and I will be forced to place you under Contempt of Court.  Unless you truly want to be thrown out of the room, I suggest you hold your tongue, woman.”

 

“Don’t you talk to my wife like that!” exclaims my father angrily.

 

And this is why my parents are thrown out of my trial. At least they don’t have to hear me admit that Scorpius and I had indeed been having sex, with great frequency and regularity. Recalling it makes my chest hurt. I miss him so much. I miss having him next to me – with me always – inside of me.  I miss his touch and his kiss and his love.  I miss him so much that it is like living without enough oxygen, trudging through my days at a sluggish pace with sore, stiff muscles.

 

When they ask me if Scorpius had been a consenting partner, I have the very awkward experience of explaining to The Wizengamut, in front of Scorpius’ parents, that he was a _top_ and how it is nearly impossible to be a non-consenting top _._   I don’t know who is more uncomfortable when I explain what being a _top_ means Scorpius did with me – Draco Malfoy or the members of the Wizengamut.

 

I am asked, “Were you in love with Scorpius Malfoy?”

 

To which I proudly reply in the present tense, “I _do_ love Scorpius. I love him more than anything.”

 

“Was this love unrequited?  One sided?  Or perhaps a bit slanted?”

 

“No,” I respond, offended, “Scorpius loves me very much.” I resolutely do not say Scorpius _loved_ me. I can feel it in my bones that, wherever he is, he still loves me.

 

“Did you have differing goals regarding where your relationship would go?”

 

I have to think about it for a little, but I answer, “Yes.  I wanted us to get married. But Scorpius didn’t believe in marriage. He didn’t want to end up like his parents.” I can see Scorpius’ mother’s brow furrow deeply with anguish when I reveal this.

 

“Did it make you angry that Scorpius did not want to marry you?”

 

“It upset me, yes.  Very much so.”  As soon as I say this, I regret letting the words escape my mouth without a filter. I realize the implications. They’re establishing a motive.

 

From this point on, the trial spirals down uncontrollably.  I’m so paranoid by now that I’m second guessing my answers and changing them on the spot. I lie and then I regret it and then tell the truth, or the other way around.  I can see that the Wizengamut is becoming impatient with me.

 

They announce that they will break for deliberation and I start to hyperventilate.  “You don’t believe me.  You think I did it. You think I actually have it in me to kill Scorpius.  I’d never. I love him.  Why can’t you see that?  Why can’t you see that we were meant to be together?  We were perfect.”

 

“That’s quite enough, young man. You’ve had your chance to speak,” reprimands the head wizard.

 

I feel darkness closing in on me. I feel like I’m drowning again. I’m breathing erratically as two guards take hold of me.

 

“Stop!  Can’t you see he’s having a panic attack?!” I turn to face the source of the shrill, horrified voice.  It is Astoria, Scorpius’ mother.  Of course she recognizes that I’m having a panic attack.  She must have witnessed her son go through the same thing. But she doesn’t stop there. She goes on to say, “Albus is innocent! He didn’t kill Scorpius! It was me!  I did it!”

 

 

Astoria doesn’t stand trial.  She confesses, and as an adult, unlike me, her testimony is given under the effects of _veritaserum_. The china at the bottom of the lake had been cursed.  Immediate death would befall anyone who touched the china in an attempt to remove it from the water. She never thought that Scorpius would remember that the china was even there, much less try to salvage it. The incident report verifies that Scorpius had indeed been holding a chipped teacup when he was found.

 

She is not convicted of murder, for it was not her intention to kill her own son.  Because of the statute of limitations had run out seven years after she had placed the curse, she is spared imprisonment in Azkaban.  But she serves a sentence of house arrest for a year, is heavily fined, and has to carry the cost of hiring curse breakers to make the lake safe again. I’m sure her punishment is nothing compared to the crushing guilt she has to live with.

 

 

~@~

 

 **_Prolonged grief disorder (PGD)_ ** _refers to a syndrome consisting of a distinct set of symptoms following the death of a loved one that are so prolonged and intense that they exceed the expectably wide range of individual and cultural variability. This is grief that does not resolve naturally and persists into the indefinite future as a defining feature that severely adversely affects the life of the survivor. The affected person is incapacitated by grief, so focused on the loss that it is difficult to care about much else. S/he ruminates about the death and longs for a reunion with the departed._

 

 

 

 

I never got to mourn for Scorpius immediately after his death.  I had been imprisoned in my mind and in a hospital room for weeks after the incident at the lake. After the trial, I had not been released to my parents, but to a low security section of the mental ward at St. Mungo’s. _For observation_ , the healers and therapists had said. But I knew the real reason. Suicide watch.

 

I didn’t know how to live without Scorpius. Losing Scorpius was like losing my legs. At first I had to deal with the shock of him not being there – I still felt his presence like an amputee still feels his legs are there even days after they’re removed.  And then I had to accept that Scorpius was gone. But I couldn’t. I still can’t. Maybe it’s because I never got to say goodbye.  I wasn’t allowed to go to his funeral. 

 

After somebody you love dies, people normally crowd around you with sympathy and support.  I never had that.  Everyone had thought that _I_ killed him, so I was never afforded that sympathy.  Not even after I was formally cleared of all charges and finally released from St. Mungo’s weeks later. And by then, everyone just wanted to forget the tragedy of Scorpius’ death and move on.  Nobody brought it up in conversation – the most I got was a half-hearted, _how are you holding up?_ I knew these people were not so much concerned as they were curious if I was still crazy. Because I was all over the papers for weeks – _Crack Pot Potter Out of the Loony Bin_ was the headline of the Daily Prophet the day after I came home.

 

After two weeks spent curled up in my bed, not wanting to eat or talk or do much of anything, dad finally figures out what I need.

 

“Do you want to visit him?” he asks, crouched down to peek at me through the little opening for air in the cave I had made of blankets.

 

I nod slowly.

 

“I’ll take you,” he offers, “We can pick up flowers from the shop in town before we go if you’d like to put some by his gravestone.”

 

I furrow my brow and push the blanket off my head. “No, I don’t want to go there. I want to go to his house.”

 

Dad furrows his brow worriedly. “He’s not there, son. Scorpius is gone.”

 

“Scorpius is there,” I insist, “He’s in the lake. And I want to go see him.”

 

Dad sighs and purses his lips as if it pains him to deny me this.  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Albie.  Remember, you’re not the only one grieving, and I’m sure Mr. Malfoy would like his privacy while he goes through the process.”

 

“Please, dad,” I whimper, “I need to. I won’t even go inside the house. I just want to go to the lake.” My voice is small and quiet.

 

“I’ll talk to mum about it,” he says. He cracks a small smile and ruffles my hair.  “Want a snack? I’ll make you your favorite – Nutella and honey sandwiches.”

 

I shake my head slowly, forcing an appreciative smile. “Not hungry.”

 

 

After a few days, I don’t get an answer from mum and dad about visiting Scorpius.  Maybe they think I’ll forget about it if they don’t talk about it. I get the feeling that they don’t want me to go to Malfoy Manor but they don’t have the heart to disappoint me. Or perhaps they are afraid of what I’ll do if they tell me _no_ outright. So I do what I have always done when I want to visit Scorpius despite not having permission. I sneak out of the house.

 

I take the train and walk from the station to Malfoy Manor.  I’m relieved when somebody answers the door who isn’t Draco Malfoy.  Scorpius’ “uncle” Theo is a welcomed sight. His smile is soft, genuine, and understanding. 

 

He asks me about the bouquet of white flowers I’m holding. “Are those for the family?  I can put them in a vase and tell them you came by.  Draco and Narcissa have gone to France for the week.”

 

“They’re for Scorpius, actually,” I admit, “I’d like to give them to him personally if that’s okay.”

 

Theodore looks confused for only a moment, but then he graciously lets me in.  “Oh. His portrait has been moved from the stairs.  Come with me – I’ll show you to the room.”

 

I step inside warily.  I feel awkward that he still doesn’t understand. “I actually don’t want to see his portrait.”  Scorpius is seven in his formal portrait, and as adorable as he is in that painting, I really don’t fancy talking to his seven-year-old self.  I worry my lip and ask, “Would it be alright if I took these flowers to the lake?”

 

Theodore allows me, but I can tell he’s nervous about letting me go there alone.  He hangs back on the lawn and watches me walk down to the dock. The curse breakers must have had their work cut out for them and evidence of their efforts litters the wooden planks of the dock.  Candle wax drippings and old chalk lines make patterns that sing with lingering powerful magic.

 

I kneel at the edge and being here again overwhelms me. I’m overcome with soul-splitting grief. I clutch the flowers too tightly to my chest as I cry.  And as I weep rivers, I realize that I hadn’t been allowed to cry until now. I’d been robbed of true emotion by sedative potions.  I’d been stoic in the face of the rest of the world who wanted to judge me and condemn me. I let my tears soak my cheeks and drip onto the white petals of the crushed flowers.

 

When I catch my breath enough to speak, I rip a white bloom from its stem, kiss it gently with tear-dampened lips, and whisper raggedly, “Wait for me, my love.”  I let the flower fall into the water and watch the ripples radiate from it like echoes of my sorrow.  Every flower I throw into the lake is a kiss for Scorpius.  Some float at the surface, some sink beneath it.

 

I see my face reflected in the lake – pinched with anguish and hollowed by grief - I’ve lost a lot of weight and there are dark circles under my eyes.  Next to my reflection should be Scorpius’ smiling face.  But all I see is nothing.  All I see is fathomless black.

 

 

That night in my dreams, Scorpius reaches a hand out to me from beneath the surface of the lake.  I stretch my arm from the dock, straining to grasp his white fingers. I fall into the water. And I’m the one drowning.

 

 

~@~

 

I didn’t particularly want to go back to school in September. But here I am. I’d spent five years at Hogwarts with Scorpius.  It doesn’t feel right starting a sixth without him.  I sleep in his bed my first night back, hoping his scent would somehow still be lingering in the sheets.  But they are new, stiff, and smell of detergent.  I claim it as my bed anyway.  I don’t fucking care that I’m almost seventeen - I curl up with my old plush rabbit every night and brace myself for the dreams that will surely plague my restless sleep.

 

On the thirteenth of September, on the day that Scorpius should have turned seventeen, I sneak out to the Black Lake at night and settle into our special tent for the evening.  I spend it sifting through a pile of Scorpius’ sketches that his uncle Theo had graciously given me.  There are pictures that I remember Scorpius drawing and some that I’d never seen. There are sketches of me, and I can tell from every deliberate stroke of his pencil how much he loved me. He had created a physical record of how he viewed me.  He cherished my smile. He worshiped my naked form. And as my fingertips brush across the parchment, I can almost touch him.  I can almost feel his hands caressing me as I trace the lines he had drawn.

 

I am folded in a thick, musty blanket that we had left inside the tent last year.  It smells of wet forest.  It still bears the stains of our messy, lustful explorations.  I strip off my clothes, close my eyes, and I revisit the way Scorpius had touched me, as best I can.  When I’m on the verge of release, I see his mouth behind my closed eyelids, forming words of adoration and bliss, words he had whispered to me not long ago – _I love you so much.  Come for me, baby.  You’re so beautiful when I fuck you.  I can’t get enough of you. You feel so fucking amazing inside._

I’m crying silently, save for my hitched breaths, as I spill over my fist and add to our collaborative masterpiece on the blanket. I fall quickly from the high, for it can’t be sustained without the arms of my beloved Scorpius to hold me through the afterglow.  So my panting breaths quickly become tormented sobs.

 

Through the silence of the damp, chilly night comes a sound.  A voice. A song.  _Our_ song. It is faint and far away, but I recognize that tune.  I don’t even bother to dress.  I dash out of the tent in search of the source of the music.  It reverberates in the valley of the lake. I follow the sound to the boathouse. But when I enter, I find nothing but darkness and the sound of the lake lapping at the wooden stilts. I kneel at the edge of the dock and peer into the water. 

 

I think I see the moon reflected in the lake, but it is Scorpius – his white face greets me just below the surface of the water. My heart leaps in my chest and it flutters with joy I hadn’t felt in so long.  His hair floats around his blanched face like pale wisps of seaweed. His expression is serene. His arms move languidly through the water, more slowly than if he’d really been swimming, and he looks like a merman in slow motion.  He is as beautiful as ever. I dangle my arm over the edge of the dock in an effort to touch him, but he’s just out of reach. And that is when I start to wonder if this is real.

 

I’m unsure if I’m dreaming or hallucinating. All I know is that, when I dive into the lake, the cold shocks my body painfully, and I am definitely awake. It hurts to move, yet I must kick and paddle to keep from drowning.  I’m reliving the worst day of my life, searching for Scorpius in the water. But this time, it doesn’t take me long to find him a few feet beneath the surface.  He smiles at me in the light of the full moon that filters through the dark green of the lake, and it makes my heart want to burst. Or perhaps that’s the lake pressing on my lungs.

 

I reach my hands through the water to hold his face, eager to kiss him, but my fingers go right through him, rendering his image a momentary swirl of bubbles.  Suddenly, his smile fades.  He looks forlorn. I try to kiss him, but my efforts yield the same results.  I try over and over to hold him, touch him, kiss him, but all I can grasp is the tragedy of our reality – we are fated never to touch again, at least in this lifetime. My anxiety dreams of the untouchable boy have come to life.  The anguish in Scorpius’ face is surely reflected in mine.

 

My body is quickly succumbing to hypothermia and lack of oxygen. I see Scorpius looking at me with concern. He wants me to get out of the water – he knows I’ll die otherwise.  I can read it all in his eyes that are more bright and ice blue than ever. As much as I want to stay underwater and be with him all night, I know it is selfish.  Scorpius had suffered so much from his mother’s near suicide – I can’t inflict that same pain upon my family by choosing to stay with him in the water.

 

So I swim towards the surface. I move my numb arms in wide arcs and kick my feet hard.  The pain in my muscles is sharp, yet I fight through it, focused on getting air and getting the hell out of the water.  But as hard as I’m swimming, I find that I’m getting nowhere.  The moon rippling above the lake is no closer than it was before. I’m dizzy and desperate to breathe. My heart beats loudly in my ears. I can’t afford to panic, but an attack strikes me.

 

Somehow I’m drowning.  My body is so cold and stiff and numb that I wouldn’t be able to feel something entangling me if there had been. I can’t even be sure that I’m not ensnared on something.  I see only blackness when I look down.  I’ve lost sight of Scorpius, and that makes me panic even more.  The lake gets darker and darker – the water becomes murkier and impossibly colder until it is completely impenetrable to light.

 

Then I feel ice snaking around my middle in the shape of arms.  They are arms that hold me tightly from behind, but not too tightly that they would keep me bogged down. I turn within these ethereal arms and I find my love again, smiling at me like moonlight on water. This time Scorpius kisses me, and I feel it.  I feel it like snow on my lips. And I can hear his voice inside my head, telling me that I’m going to be alright. 

_Everything’s going to be alright.  We’re going to be together now.  Forever._

The ice fills my veins, cold enough that it feels like frostbite burning through my flesh.  We kiss for longer than is possible and I’m hit with the revelation that I don’t actually need oxygen anymore.  I have Scorpius back by my side and he is all that I will ever need.

~@~

 

**_POTTER FOUND DEAD IN THE WATER - TRAGEDY STRIKES HOGWARTS_ **

_By Rita Skeeter_

_A mere month after being released from a maximum security ward at St. Mungo’s for the criminally insane, Albus Potter has been found dead at Hogwarts School. An unnamed student made the gruesome discovery of the sixteen-year-old student’s nude, lifeless body at the shore of The Black Lake early Wednesday morning.  Albus, who was the son of the great Harry Potter, presumably drowned some time in the hours just before dawn._

_Ministry officials told The Daily Prophet that, based on post-mortem examination of the body and forensic evidence gathered around Hogwarts’ grounds, no foul play seems to have been involved.  Suicide is suspected, though no note has been recovered._

_The middle Potter child had a long documented history of mental illness, which had been managed and kept secret for years.  But Albus’ psychoses spiraled out of control following the eerily similar tragic death of his gay teen lover, Scorpius Malfoy.  In July, Malfoy had drowned at his family’s estate, having befallen an old curse placed on the lake by Astoria Greengrass, Scorpius’ mother. Potter, who was with Scorpius when he drowned, had been indicted and tried by the Wizengamut for the Malfoy murder, but was cleared when Ms. Greengrass had confessed to unwittingly having a hand in her own son’s accidental death._

_Fellow Slytherin students remember Potter as being a happy, extroverted boy, however mischievous.  “He was super shy when he first started Hogwarts, but he opened up pretty quickly,” says Bryce Zabini of his former roommate, Albus, “He never struck me as mental at all, other than the fact that he fancied boys.”  Potter was never ashamed of his sexuality, and was generally accepted by his peers. “He was always snogging Scor[pius],” says another dorm mate, Lloyd Warrington, “And we were always, like, yeah that’s cool – so what if he’s getting it on with another bloke – at least somebody’s getting some.”_

_Friends close to both Albus and Scorpius say that neither boy was ostracized or shunned by their family for being gay.  Mental health experts say that a high percentage of teen suicides occur because their sexual or gender identity is not accepted by their peers or their family. This does not seem to be what happened in the case of Albus Potter, who, unlike the wizard for whom he was named, was very open about his homosexuality._

_After the death of his boyfriend of three years, classmates and professors say Potter became a mere shell of his former self.  Several first-hand accounts report that Potter had been uncharacteristically closed-off and quiet upon his return to school following the traumatic events of the summer._

_Leaked records from St. Mungo’s show that Potter had been treated for anxiety disorder and post traumatic stress disorder, and possibly suffered from prolonged grief syndrome.  Could the loss of his young lover been enough to drive this already mentally ill boy off the literal deep end?_

_The Daily Prophet will continue to report any revelations in this mysterious case, which is still under Ministry investigation.  It can be assumed that no leaf will remain unturned as investigators look into unearthing the details surrounding the death of the head auror’s son._

_The Potter family declined to comment other than to say that they wish to grieve privately and ask that all condolences be addressed to Harry Potter’s office at the Auror Department of the DMLE.  The Malfoy family also declined to comment._

_Albus Severus Potter is survived by his famous war hero father, Harry Potter, his mother – former Holyhead Harpies chaser – Ginny Potter, unassuming younger sister - Lily Potter, and older brother – Puddlemere United heartthrob – Jamie Potter._

_A private memorial service will be held at an undisclosed location this Sunday. But a makeshift shrine to both Albus and Scorpius has been erected at the Hogwarts boathouse where students and staff have been placing flowers, notes, plush rabbits, and photographs in an effort to pay respects to and remember these two young men whose lives were abruptly cut short._

~@~

 

They say that The Black Lake is haunted. People have reported seeing somebody swimming naked in the lake when it is much too cold to be in the water. Slytherins have said they’ve seen a boy swimming past the window of the common room, stark naked, with a cheeky grin on his face, much to the shock of many students.  In the few days during the school year when it is actually warm enough to swim, people have seen the boy underwater.  Kids at Hogwarts have been referring to the ghosts of the castle by some rather unflattering nicknames over the decades.  They have taken to calling this particular ghost Skinny Dippy, because he’s only ever been seen swimming and never with any clothes. Occasionally, he swims through the pipes up into the prefects’ bath and can be heard singing an old Celestina Warbeck ballad, sometimes making a duet of it with Moaning Myrtle.

 

He seems like a rather harmless, happy-go-lucky ghost. But sometimes he gets anxious, like he’s desperate to escape the water to which he is confined to for all eternity. Some say that he’s been trying to find his lover, who had drowned in a lake hundreds of miles away in England.

 

I’ve seen him several times during my ten-years-plus teaching Transfiguration at Hogwarts.  I’ve seen him splashing in the lake from a distance on a snowy day. I’ve seen his face beneath the ice while skating in the height of winter.  I’ve ventured into the Slytherin dorms during school breaks and we’ve exchanged whole conversations with our eyes through the thick glass that separates the common room from the lake that surrounds it.  I can infer the meaning of his expressions because I’d known him very well when he was alive.  Before he started calling me Professor Lupin, he called me Teddy.

 

Albus Potter was my god brother. We grew up together. I should really say that _I_ grew up with him, for he never had the chance to grow up. When he drowned in The Black Lake, he was a few months shy of seventeen.  I had just begun my second year teaching at Hogwarts.  He never got to finish school, never got to become the rock star he always dreamed of becoming.  He never got to see me marry his brother James.  Every year, on the anniversary of Albus’ death and Scorpius’ birthday, I sit by the lake and watch his ghost frolic in the water as Jamie playfully torments him with well-aimed pebbles.

 

Sometimes, when I’m in the bath, I hear Albus’ voice when he’s in the pipes of the castle. Usually, he’s just singing, or refusing the advances of Myrtle.  But sometimes, it seems like he’s talking specifically to me.  I dip my head back in the bath and let the water cover my ears as I listen to his voice – he sounds muffled, like he’s speaking through an old muggle telephone.

 

_Tell Scorpius I’ll be coming home.  Tell him to wait for me._

I’ve heard it several times. 

Twelve years after Albus had passed away, I visit Malfoy Manor.  Narcissa Malfoy, my great aunt and Scorpius’ grandmother, has died.  I sneak away from the memorial service and find the lake where Scorpius had drowned.  I kneel on the dock and peer at the dark water.  And I tell Scorpius what Albus had asked me to tell him.

 

Just when I think that I’m talking to myself, feeling silly for humoring the hopeless wishes of a ghost, Scorpius appears beneath the surface.  He reaches up and just the tips of his translucent fingers break the surface of the water. He’s holding something. A white rose.  I take it from his ghostly hand – its petals are cold as snow, but soft as if it had been plucked at its prime in the summer.

 

When I return to Hogwarts, I toss the flower into the lake from the dock at the boathouse.  I watch it slowly sinking until it disappears into the black. A few moments later, I see Albus swimming with the biggest smile, clutching the flower.

 

The ghost of Albus Potter hasn’t been seen at Hogwarts since.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The song I had in mind is the rendition of "Unchained Melody" by She & Him. Any similarities to the film, "Ghost", are purely incidental. I borrowed the musical trigger thing from "Silver Linings Playbook".
> 
> Bryce Zabini belongs to Shannon and Dustan Montague belongs to Colorfulstabwound.


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